Chapter-6
My surroundings were completely white and it felt as though I was floating on the most comfortable cloud, I felt that I could sleep here forever. Some corner of my consciousness was wondering where I was and how I got here but that was a very very small portion of my psyche, slowly my memories of recent events came back to me and I started to panic- Where was I? Was everyone else okay? Was the injured Zubat doing fine? Had the others found me? - As my mind was spiralling into chaos I suddenly awoke from the dream like state I was in. The moment I opened my eyes I was greeted with a very familiar ceiling, I was in my own room, on my bed. Just when I was wondering how I ended up here and if I was still dreaming a loud shriek startled me, it was accompanied by a weeping voice that was half worried and half happy-"Oh Sage honey you're finally awake, do you know how worried your Dad and I were. I'm so glad you're okay now, you are totally fine now right? How could you put yourself in danger like that? What were you thinking? Did you even consider our feelings when you were being a daredevil in the Slowpoke Well?"- Mom started off being very happy and glad at the beginning and eventually going off to lecturing and scolding me. I was smothered in a bear hug when Dad entered the room-"You gave us quite a scare there sport. Your Mom was so worried; she nearly drove the doctors insane."-Dad.
"*Humpf* as I recall it was you who was threatening the doctors not me."-Mom, the mood soon simmered down now that I was awake and out of danger. I could still see signs of exhaustion on my Parent's faces, especially Mom as she had rushed from her lab in a flight when she got the news, they both had bags under their eyes and their hair and clothes were a little dishevelled, but despite all that my Parents tried to shrug it off so as not to upset me. I had tears in my eyes as wept and said I was sorry to both of them and we all huddled into a hug. After much comforting they told me to rest some more and wait as they prepared some food for me, I didn't want to just lie in bed anymore and wanted to help with the cooking like usual but I was forced to rest in bed.
I later learnt that I was unconscious for an entire day so my Parents decided to fill me in on all the things that had elapsed. Well the Zubat was safe and sound and was currently recuperating in the Pokémon Center and would soon make a full recovery, it was thanks to Zubat that I was found so quickly in the first place as its shrill cry was what guided the search party to our location. There was also the news of the discovery of the passage and hall linked to the Ruins of Alph so a lot of researchers were flooding into town, as I was the first to discover it there were talks regarding giving me a reward but I could sense that the reward was just a cover to interrogate me. Needless to say my Parents adamantly refused the reward and also told the researchers to not pester us. I later learnt that there was no more glowing mist or any other strange phenomena at the site, just a plain regular ruin. After I had eaten my fill and all my questions were answered Mom took the dishes out of the room while telling me to get some more rest.
I was alone in the room again so I tried to recall what happened in the grand hall before I lost consciousness and what caused me to black out in the first place. My thoughts immediately spun to the crystal on the altar, after absorbing my blood it had shattered and a glowing golden gas had seeped into my body. I concentrated more on that and the events that followed, as I calmly closed my eyes and tried to remember I found something extraordinary. I had new information about cultivating Aura in my memory, I don't know how exactly it got there but it was definitely there. I tried to calm down but I was just way too excited, eventually I regained my bearings and started to slowly analyse the cultivation method. It was called the 'Aura Realm Cultivation' technique, there were details pertaining to sensing Aura, absorbing it, circulating it within oneself as well as some breathing techniques and exercises. There was also quite a bit of information on the uses of Aura, for instance it could be used like Chakra or Qi to strengthen the body sort of like in Naruto, it could also be used to speed up recovery of oneself and others be it people or Pokémon and strangely enough if one tried really hard one would even be able to communicate with Nature and Pokémon as well.
Just when I was beginning to get hyper over the fact that I would soon be able to use Aura my fantasies were grounded when I learnt that to start cultivating this technique I had to be infused with purified Aura from another who knew how to use Aura and then slowly circulate it and let it strengthen my body enough before I could absorb the Aura from my environment. Without this external Aura infusion I would be unable to sense Natural Aura and even if I could, trying to absorb it directly would cause severe injuries to my body maybe even death and remembering the expressions on my Parent's faces a while back stopped all thoughts to still try absorbing Natural Aura. Instead I decided to just go over the technique again and familiarize myself with the circulation routes and breathing method in case I somehow got a chance to cultivate in the future. As I was going over the first few steps on circulating Aura and exploring the meridians within my body I was shocked to feel some sort of warm stream flowing in my veins...
I paused and slowly examined further, using the method described I found that there was a wisp of golden gas like substance in my meridians...this this was purified Aura there was no mistaking it, it was just as described in the cultivation technique. With my hope reignited I began cultivating immediately, but I still cultivated slowly and carefully at first as failure would cause the infused Aura to go to waste and I would not be able to cultivate again until someone infused purified Aura into me again, I had a lot of time now anyways as my Parents asked me to rest and recover for a full week, so I made good use of the time to cultivate and soon I had completely assimilated the infused Aura. As soon as I was allowed to leave the house again I rushed to the library and tried to dig up all the information that was there about Aura. After reading through a good number of books with any related topics I found out that users of Aura today were extremely few in number and they were very secretive about their ways as they would not share any information easily, also their ways seemed to be quite different from those in the technique I had acquired, that is of course from just my observations of the descriptions of Aura Guardians. For instance their Auras are all blue in colour but practising the 'Aura Realm Cultivation' a different coloured Aura may arise such as the Gold Aura I was first infused with, another difference is that most Aura Guardians need external tools such as high grade crystals to channel and use Aura in the physical world but my technique needs no such thing and lastly the applications of Aura were many in my technique but few in others, well maybe the last one was due to the records on Aura Guardians being so vague and incomplete.
"What are you reading Sage?"- Heart suddenly asks. She had snuck up on me as I was reading in a quiet corner of the library.
"Oh, nothing much."- I casually reply, she had visited me every day in the past week and informing me of the happenings at school, Zubat's condition and other general topics. After all we had been through we had grown quite close and could be called the best of friends.
"Let me see. Let me see."- She pestered before finally snatching the book from me and giving it a once over before saying-"Aura Guardian Guide, why are you interested in this? Do you want to be one when you grow up?"-She questioned closely through squinted eyes.
"I don't really want to be an Aura Guardian or anything, I was just a little curious."- I reply as I take the book back and continue reading.
"Uuu... Its sooo boring all you do is read in this place, no fun at all. You're so smart already so you don't need to study more, let's go to the forest to play."- She continues to annoy me. It was sort of understandable with what transpired in the Slowpoke well Mom would definitely not let me go off on any more adventures anytime soon and Heart was bound to get bored real soon without anyone to play with.*sigh* There was nothing I could do so I just let her continue complaining, I knew Mom would eventually lift the restrictions placed on me when she cools down a bit, it was just a matter of time. When I couldn't take her whining any more I suggested we go pay a visit to Zubat as it was all healed now and Officer Jenny would take it back to the Slowpoke well tomorrow.
So the days passed and my regular routine resumed with the addition of Aura cultivation of course. Soon a year and a half had passed, though I had only just turned seven not long back the effects of my training in the forest were plainly visible, I had grown far stronger, even stronger than most adults and I was just at the level where I could purify and condense my own Aura though not much of it, my progress might seem fast by comparison to the records imprinted in my memory but if anything my Innate Skill had a large part in it. Thanks to my skill [Insight] I could understand the intricacies of the technique better and also slightly tune it for my own requirements, it also helped in careful observation and control of my Aura so as to prevent backlashes;*sigh* if only I'd discovered the benefits of my skill in cultivating earlier then I would have been able to condense my Aura six months ago. Surprisingly my condensed Aura was a sparkling leaf green in colour unlike the standard blue or the gold one I was infused with.
Today I was enjoying a calm and relaxing walk through the forest with Charlie while taking my time to appreciate the wonderful scenery as today was one of those extremely rare days where Heart did not accompany me and I did not have to follow her rushed pace. I started proceeding deeper towards the core regions of the forest to cut the really high quality trees, business was doing really good now as I could venture to the forest depths safely to gather the finer quality wood so our Charcoal quality naturally improved. I had just spotted a suitable tree to cut when I suddenly felt a strange fluctuation in the Natural Aura, breathing and circulating in accordance with the cultivation method had become ingrained in me now and thanks to that my already keen perceptions of my surroundings improved by no small amount. I moved closer to the disturbance slowly, just as I rounded a large 10meter wide tree I saw a faint near transparent silhouette of something really small flying a dozen meters away from me, seeing this got me really excited as I could tell even from the faint outline that it was Celebi. As I was pondering whether to get closer or not Celebi vanished into thin air completely, I soon rushed to the spot I had last seen it and looked around in all directions. As I was looking around a sharp glint caught my eye, I went to check it out as it could be a rare item or even a regular one at least, trainers dropped a lot of items in here as the fumbled with their bags in the poor lighting while being chased by swarms of Beedrill or other Pokémon. When I got close I was shocked to see a Poke ball, as to why I was shocked because of a Poke ball was due to the fact that the one in front of me was no doubt the GS Ball, it was just like the one in the anime- Gold and Silver in colour with the letters 'GS' engraved on it. I picked it up and examined it before putting it in my bag and then turned back to gather wood after one last hopeful look around the forest.
I left for home early as Mom had come by for her usual scheduled visits from work and I wanted to cherish all the time I got with her. At home when I set my bag down at the entrance to take off my shoes the GS Ball rolled out and just as I reached out to grab it Mom arrived to greet me. She froze when she saw the GS Ball and looked like she was going to scold me for bringing another one of "Old Man Kurt's" creations, she was quite incensed with me learning from him-
"It's not what you think; I found it in the forest. I was curious as it's different from any other Poke ball I've seen."- I hurriedly try to explain myself as Mom picks up the GS Ball and examines it herself.
"Hmm.."- She seems intrigued by it-"It's definitely out of the ordinary, let me examine it more thoroughly in my lab when I get back."- She said before turning around and walking towards the living room while still examining the Poke ball. She suddenly stopped after taking a few steps and turned her head towards me slowly-"You did good finding this Honey, now let's just keep this a secret between us, no need to get anyone else especially a certain old man involved in this."- Her voice became really eerie as she said that, I don't know why but the glint in her eyes as she said that gave me goose bumps. Guess I finally know why the GS Ball despite being a Johto region event item in the game ended up in the Orange Islands; I really need to find a way to resolve this feud somehow.
That night just after I'd finished dinner with my family the door bell rang, someone was really impatient as they kept ringing it so I rushed to the door to answer it. I was greeted by an out of breath Heart at the door way-"Wha.."- Before I could even say anything she thrust flyer in my face and motioned me to read it quickly. I still urged her to come inside and rest a little first, as we were seated in the living room I went through the flyer. It was a flyer to advertise the upcoming annual Pokémon Summer Camp for kids organised by Professor Elm and Professor Oak. This was an annual event held every summer at a resort on the out skirts of Goldenrod city, almost every child over seven years of age aspiring to be a Pokémon trainer would attend this camp so needless to say that I was definitely interested. Just as I raised my head to say that I was more than willing to participate Heart hurriedly pointed towards the bottom right corner of the flyer, I suddenly froze; the last day to sign up and register was the day after tomorrow, that's what I get for being too busy with cultivation and not paying too much attention to the outside world.
"We need to go to Goldenrod city Pokémon Center to register but Grandpa said he was too busy and I don't know who else to ask to accompany me."- Heart said in a dejected manner. Just then Dad walked up behind me and peered over my head at the flyer-"It's that time of the year already huh... Pokémon Summer Camp, that sure brings back memories. Say I just so happen to have some errands to run at Goldenrod city so you kids are welcome to tag along if you like and we can get you registered for the camp as well."- Dad said. Heart and I looked at him like we'd seem our saviour. It was set, Heart would come over to my house at 8am tomorrow and we'd set off for Goldenrod city together with my Dad as he delivered a fresh batch of Charcoal to the Goldenrod city Supermarket.